re a stationer and
kept a circulating library, I think I should try to turn an honest penny
by selling sand to my customers along with their packets of linen-wove
and blue-black writing-fluid. "Simple, effective, and leaves no chance
to the blackmailer."

* * * * *

It is pleasant to receive in this age of realism a novel that is
frankly romantic. Miss KAYE-SMITH in _Three against the World_ (CHAPMAN
AND HALL) colours up life with lavish brush. We have a returned convict
who fiddles in the rain for the benefit of dancing village children; we
have impresarios who stand at the doors of inns and hear him thus
fiddling; an untidy heroine who speaks in gasps and gurglings; and a
lover who goes to literary parties in London and therefore (the
inference is implied by the author) falls in love with two ladies at
once. Such a novel is refreshing after the mathematical accuracy with
which clerks, barmaids and politicians are perpetually presented to us
by our novelists, but I am not at all sure that Miss KAYE-SMITH is wise
in trusting our credulity too far. There was a day when one would have
accompanied her _Tramping Methodist_ anywhere, but of late years that
promise has not been fulfilled, and her last novel is, I think,
distinctly her poorest. I like her affection for Sussex, her catalogue
of Sussex names, the fine colour of her descriptive work; but her story
is on the present occasion too obviously arranged behind the scenes. One
can see the author working again and again for the romantic moment, and
scenes that should have convinced and wrung the reader's heart (always
eager to be wrung) have in their appearance some suspicion of the paint
and paste-pot of the cheaper drama. I hope that Miss KATE-SMITH will get
back in her next book to her earlier strength and sincerity.

* * * * *

That _Second Nature_ (DUCKWORTH), which JOHN TRAVERS has in mind, is the
innate sense of obligation which compels a gentleman to be a gentleman,
whatever else he may be, in all that he does, says, thinks, eats, drinks
and wears. The family of _Westfield_ went back to times past
remembering, and it came a little hard to the descendant of such a stock
to have to choose his wife from among women who had done time or else to
lose that legacy by the help of which alone he could hope to keep up the
ancestral castle as a going concern. But so it was, by reason of the
testamentary capric